Bentley Systems and Microsoft have expanded their partnership to focus on digitising urban planning and advancing infrastructure in smart construction. The alliance will combine Microsoft’s Azure IoT Digital Twins and Azure Maps with Bentley Systems’ iTwins platform, to enable the development of city-wide digital twins, which could improve decision-making, efficiency and collaboration, and reduce costs. 

“With Azure IoT, Azure Digital Twins and Bentley’s iTwins platform, the world’s infrastructure – vital to our economies and environment – stands to gain so much by enabling people to create comprehensive digital models of an entire environment,” said Casey McGee, vice president of global ISV sales at Microsoft. “Our expanded strategic alliance with Bentley Systems opens up new opportunities for innovation and will accelerate the benefits of digital twins for infrastructure engineering organisations and, more broadly, society at large.”

Dublin City Council in the Republic of Ireland is currently working with Bentley to develop a digital twin as part of its city planning efforts.

“To overcome the challenges of getting public review and comment for new development projects in Dublin during the pandemic, we turned to Microsoft and Bentley to create an interactive virtual environment to ensure our citizens could provide their input from the safety of their homes and keep the development projects on track,” said Jamie Cudden, smart city program manager at Dublin City Council. “Working with Microsoft and Bentley we are reimagining how interactive virtual environments and digital twins can support citizens to engage from the safety of their own home on new development projects in their local communities. 

“Working with these technology partners, we are building an adaptable and scalable solution based on Microsoft Teams and Bentley’s OpenCities Planner that will set the standard for the future of planning and public engagement in cities.”
 

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